PRESS RELEASE

DEN HAAG/THE HAGUE NOVEMBER 19, 1999

LAWYERS MEET WITH CHIEF PROSECUTOR OVER NATO WAR CRIMES

Canadian lawyers met in The Hague today with war crimes Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte to urge her to act quickly against NATO leaders for war crimes commited against the population of Yugoslavia in the bombing campaign.

Lawyer David Jacobs and law professor Michael Mandel met for 1 1/2 hours this morning with Judge Del Ponte and two of her top
legal advisors.

The lawyers delivered three thick volumes of evidence substantiating their charges that 67 NATO leaders (including Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Tony Blair, Jean Chretien, Javier Solana, Jamie Shea and others) were guilty of war crimes and crimes of humanity in causing the deaths and maiming of thousands of civilians and billions of dollars of property damage, among other things.

The lawyers told Judge Del Ponte that there was no excuse for the Tribunal to wait any longer, that the failure to act was a violation of her duties under the law and was raising strong suspicions that the Tribunal was biased in favour of NATO. The lawyers were critical of the Tribunal for having rushed to indict Yugoslav President Milosevic during the illegal NATO bombardment and not the NATO leaders.

“We want to change the status of the NATO leaders from unindicted war criminals to indicted war criminals” said Mandel.

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Professor Mandel wrote this paper after the ICTY summarily rejected the very fully evidenced case put to Carla del Ponte.

Politics and Human Rights in International Criminal Law_ Our Case 2